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SWAYING TREE TOPS 



SWAYING TREE TOPS 



BY 

ELMER WILLIS SERL 



New York and Washington 
THE NEALE PUBLISHING COMPANY 

1907 



lUBRARYof C0NQKE9S 
TwoCopl«s Received 

DEC 20 1907 

_ OoByriffci tntry 

CLA8S/9 , XXc. NO. 
COPY B. 






Copyright, 1907, by 
The Neale Publishing Company 



First published in December^ 1907 



fir) 

r 



" The very quietness of nature is gradually 
withdrawn from us; thousands who once in 
their necessarily prolonged travel were sub- 
jected to an influence, from the silent sky and 
slumbering fields, more effectual than known 
or confessed, now bear with them even there 
the ceaseless fever of their life; and along 
the iron veins that traverse the frame of our 
country, beat and flow the fiery pulses of its 
exertion, hotter and faster every hour. All 
vitality is concentrated through those throb- 
bing arteries into the central cities; the 
country is passed over like a green sea by 
narrow bridges, and we are thrown back in 
continually closer crowds upon the city 
gates." 

— RusKiN, in ''Seven Lamps of Architecture,'' 



CONTENTS 



April in the Heart 

An Evening Silhouette . 

The Listening of the Robin 

The Other Harbinger 

Pear-tree Wisdom . 

Twenty-fold .... 

Back to Eden .... 

A Contented Trio 

The Plotless Life 

Straight-line Effects 

A Wintry Vale 

The Retreat of Life . 

The Going of the Past . 

Plenty of Time 

A Southerner to the Last 

Voices of the Gorge . 

Spring Waters 

The Divine Adjustment . 

The Hillside Sleepers 

The Garden of Quietness 



PAGE 

9 

14 

18 
22 
27 
31 
38 
47 
58 
64 
70 
73 
76 
78 
81 
86 
92 
94 
96 
99 



CONTENTS 



Where Lilacs Bloom . 
When the Forest Closes In 
A Blue-grass Idyl. 
The Summit of the Year 
The Explaining God . 
Soil Thoughts 
The Smug Life 
Mountain Moonlight 
The Isolation of Dawn . 
Russet Premonitions . 
Witching Pathways . 
Out-door Compensations 
Close Home .... 
Wrestling Sycamores 



103 
108 
113 
118 
124 
126 
133 
135 
140 
144 
147 
153 
156 
158 



April in the Heart 

I BEGIN these fancies at the time of 
year when the buds are first seen. 
They are chnging to the twigs with 
their baby hands crowding each 
other as though they were afraid 
they might fall off. Selfishness is 
life, I guess; anyhow it is in buds. 
To-day there is no wind, and I think 
the buds are holding on with one 
hand and resting the other hand and 
arm, as I have seen boys do after 
carrying a heavy burden, swinging 
their arms to ease the ache. 

To have been strenuous I should 
have begun with the tree tops in 

[9] 



SWAYING TREE TOPS 

winter, but I do not like winter, and 
if the Turks want another calendar 
I will arrange one for them without 
any winter. Those who have blood 
that is nine-tenths iron enjoy winter, 
at least they say they do. Those 
who have iron that is nine-tenths 
blood prefer summer. I am a blooded 
individual, speaking of myself as I 
do of a nut when I call it meaty. 
Shut in by winter's rain and cold, I 
dream all the time about the spring, 
and imagine the soft breezes and 
the languorous mood when peaches 
bloom and roses scent the air. If 
there is anything finer than a spring 
day when sunshine floods the valley 
and the warming earth sends up its 
odors through the brush and along 
the tree trunks, and finally out where 

[10] 



SWAYING TREE TOPS 

the buds cling to the tree tops, it cer- 
tainly is not found during the winter, 
but possibly later in the spring, or in 
the summer, or autumn. 

There are two harbingers of 
spring. One is a girl newly gowned, 
with a bunch of violets at her waist. 
The other is the note of the robin. 
They come close together. Some- 
times the girl with the violets is first 
— again it is the robin. This year 
they were just six days apart, and 
the robin beat the girl. The first 
note of the robin! How fresh and 
new it is! It sounds like the first 
strawberries taste. After weeks of 
shut windows, and furnace fires, and 
house air, to hear the robin call out- 
side is an experience from which 
words run away. 



SWAYING TREE TOPS 

The robin looks in on us for the 
first time in the morning. That is 
when I best hke to have him come. 
He turns up all at once. I am not 
thinking of him at all, when suddenly 
I hear him call. If anyone may 
be pardoned for interrupting him- 
self at his prayers, I think it is 
when robin calls. I like to think that 
he has been traveling all night, and 
early in the morning drops his grip 
on my doorstep, and calls out, 
"Here!" "Here!" "Spring!" 
" Spring! " He who made the birds 
did put such meaning into one note. 
I understand how the "come forth " 
at the tomb of Lazarus awakened 
the sleeper. He who made the robin's 
call could easily charge his own voice 
with persuasive power. The first 

[12] 



tJK^t* IIJ I ^ 'i i ri ^ ^t- .rftfe/ 



SWAYING TREE TOPS 

spring bird's note is a resurrecting 
voice, and many stones are rolled 
away from tiny sepulchers, and grass 
and flower come out to new life. 



[13] 



An Evenestg Silhouette 

Three days after robin dropped his 
grip and said he was at his journey's 
end, a thunderstorm broke at inter- 
vals all day along the hillside. Just 
at sunset the clouds cleared enough 
to tell me where west was. There is 
a light that comes upon the rain- 
drenched landscape at sunset which 
is quite different than that of any 
other hour of all days. It is different 
because it changes every object, and 
gives even the ugliest some claim to 
attractiveness. The last light of day 
is tinted. White light is a revealer — 
tinted light is a concealer. If one 
could stay in a tinted light always he 
would be passably respectable. The 

[14] 



SWAYING TREE TOPS 

best that he can do, however, is to 
get through the white hght of mid- 
day as he can, trusting that the sun- 
set will be generous. 

Before the thunderstorm some 
days ago the hills were brown, but 
a few hours wrought their transfor- 
mation and at evening they were 
lying drenched with green. The top- 
most twigs of maple and sycamore 
had turned color in the few hours, 
apparent preparation for some real 
work next day in bud development. 

The wet sidewalk — the pools along 
the way — the green hillside — the 
bare trees with their prophetic tints 
— were all enveloped in the after- 
glow of the sunset, and had the 
unreality which a scene has when 
you view it with inverted head. It 

[15] 



SWAYING TREE TOPS 

was an hour when I could not say 
spring had come, for I was not sure 
winter had gone, but I felt that one 
was coming nearer every moment, 
and the other departing. On the 
highest bough of the tallest tree, 
robin was silhouetted against the 
evening sky. If ever robin throws 
back his shoulders and his head and 
stands erect, it is at evening when he 
finds the tallest tree. During the day 
he is often on the grass, or in a bush, 
or on a fencepost, or half way up a 
tree; but at evening nothing satisfies 
him but a tree top. I think I know 
why he takes the lofty perch. He is 
curious about next day, and goes up 
into the tree top to get a view of the 
morrow. So as I walked out the other 
evening robin told me by his song 

[16] 



SWAYING TREE TOPS 

that next day would be first day of 
real spring. He threw down to me a 
few notes of song which were hints 
of what he saw coming. He said the 
trees would soon be in leaf, the air 
warmer, the twilight longer, and 
having given me that much of his 
tree-top vision, he fell to talking to 
himself less distinctly as the dark 
drew near. He sang a little song as 
though he were practicing a tree-top 
lullaby for future use, and seemed 
half ashamed. 

The tint of the west faded, the air 
grew damy) and cold, the clouds gath- 
ered across the sky, and I wondered 
if robin really saw what he told me. 



[17] 



The Listening of the Robin 

Now and again we hear words about 
vision power. The desire for vision 
is nothing new. Isaiah talked about 
it, and said vision had become as the 
words of a book that was sealed. I 
think it was unfortunate that he 
called it a sealed book. It brought in 
the thought of study and musty 
pages, and close application to line 
and word and letter in order to gain 
it. I wonder if that has not been our 
trouble all along — we have thought 
vision was a complex state of 
thought, something to be gained by 
hard labor — a travail of soul, then 
vision. A strenuous life will develop 

[18] 



SWAYING TREE TOPS 

a materialist, but it will not develop 
vision in anyone. He who desireth 
vision power must out of doors listen 
and look. We have thought that 
these words of the Hebrew seer were 
easily comprehended. Xot one in 
a hundred has understood them. 
" Consider the lilies of the field how 
they grow; they toil not, neither do 
they spin; yet I say unto you that 
even Solomon in all his glory was not 
arrayed like one of these." 

Vision — vision — what is it? It is 
sensing things, that is all. It is the 
simplest thing in all the world. That 
is why, talking so much about find- 
ing it, we never get it. That is why 
we find it not in the canon of city 
streets, but in the canon of the moun- 
tains; not where switch engines 

[19] 



SWAYING TREE TOPS 

screech and puff, but where shadows 
play across the meadows. 

Vision being simple sensing, the 
bird out yonder in the sunlight has 
it, and every note of song or conver- 
sation is its effort to reveal the 
spring. Birds do not always sing, 
but sometimes talk, and the reason 
their talk is musical is because they 
speak of the same things of which 
they sing. 

I hope robin will forgive me for 
doubting what he told me the other 
night after the storm. He knew the 
spring was here. He sensed it in the 
tree top. I stood down in the mud, 
that was my trouble. This morning, 
which is the realest spring morning 
yet, is vindication of the robin. Poor 
mortal that I am — my view in the 

[20] 



SWAYING TREE TOPS 

mud did not give me this morning. 
It is robin's morning, because he went 
into the tree top. 

You might think that being able 
to see so much up there robin would 
be vain and never come back to earth 
again. That would be the way with 
me. Not so robin. I just saw him 
out in the grass, standing quietly 
listening to hear it grow (or was he 
waiting for a worm). What joy it 
gives him! Listening — listening all 
the time — everywhere ! Robin is very 
near to the heart of things these days. 
Robin hath vision. 



[21] 



The Other Harbinger 

It was six days after robin came 
that the girl with the violets at her 
waist came across my path. She is 
the other harbinger of spring. I pre- 
sume it is the same stirring in the 
heart that brings out the girl with 
the violets, that brings robin toward 
the north. It is a virgin sense. In 
the spring a girl is just herself. She 
and the season are one. Both are 
sweet, pleasant to the eyes, and they 
make the blood flow faster. A girl 
in furs may be beautiful, but a girl 
in some light stuff, with violets, is 
more than beautiful, just as plum 
trees in blossom outrank y^lum trees 
covered with snow. 

There are those, mostly men and 

[22] 



SWAYING TREE TOPS 

women who do not know, who say, 
" The girl's desire for hat and gown 
in springtime is a sign of vanity 
and frivolity." If that be so, praises 
be to vanity and frivolity. But it 
is not vanity, neither frivolity. Might 
as well call the first spring flowers 
that I saw the other day vain for put- 
ting on their best and newest garb. 
When the south wind began to blow 
occasionally, or rather when the cold 
winds did not blow, the flowers came 
out. They could not help it. So with 
that girl with her violets: when the 
chill of winter began to leave she 
appeared. 

There are two occasions when vir- 
tue comes out in our lives. One is 
when the cold winds cease — the other 
is when the warm winds blow. In the 

[23] 



SWAYING TREE TOPS 

first it is the result of the life within 
that, when the hostilities are taken 
away, bursts into blossom. In the 
second it is the result of the coax- 
ing, the alluring of a pleasing en- 
vironment. May we not think that 
the virtue which is the blossom of the 
life within is the choicer and the more 
desirable? But then who cares to 
limit our opportunities for being vir- 
tuous? If we do not respond when 
hostilities cease, let us not fail when 
the south wind blows. 

She who makes her appearance in 
spring, new with ribbon and cloth 
and flower, hath a mission. I hope 
she realizes it. I have seen a street- 
car full of the remnants of the winter 
perceptibly brighten at the entrance 
of the spring girl. The conductor 

[24] 



SWAYING TREE TOPS 

came out of his stolid indifference, 
and even reached out a hand to help 
her up the step. It was the involun- 
tary recognition of the new and 
fresh. The man whose foot was un- 
derneath another man's foot when 
the conductor played " jerk " with 
the current, swallowed his swear 
when he caught sight of her. Again 
along the crowded street, where men 
and women hurried, jostling each 
other, some weary with the day's toil, 
others weary with hours of shop- 
ping — the spring girl has suddenly 
appeared, whence no one knew. 
Like the robin, she dropped on the 
tired crowd without a warning save 
the odor of her violets. She seemed 
to be from another sphere. Her 
freshness and cleanliness were not a 

[25] 



SWAVINC TREK TOPS 

purl oi' that smoky, dusty street. 
Along it she went as a thing foreign 
to it — condescending to give it the 
transforming infhjence of her pres- 
ence for a moment. The banana 
man forgot his cry to gaze after 
her. 'Vhi' newsy said w;ith reverence, 
"Gee I look at her"; and the dark 
woman in the red jacket, with the 
green birds, forgot to help fier big- 
gest bird to the; top of the cage and 
let him clamf)er uf> alone, whilst she 
took a longer look after the vision of 
the s[)ring. It must be hard to see 
this much of s|)ring, to get just this 
hint of what it is like, and then never 
see more. But those wfio never get 
beyond the city streets are tfumkful, 
no don})t, for tfie little. The girl with 
her violets liatfi a mission. 

[26 1 



Pear-tree Wisdom 

Here is a morning when the June 
sunhght drops upon the trees, pene- 
trates no further than a foot into 
their deep shadiness, then resigns it- 
self to flooding all the open spaces, 
leaving the shadows to their own 
dark ways. The season has come on 
thus far, and I cannot think where 
the weeks have gone since first I 
heard the robin's note. He no longer 
has that prophetic call, but his note 
has taken on maturity, and sounds as 
though ripe cherries had effected a 
transformation in it. The apples and 
pears and peaches have done with 
their pink-and-white finery, and have 
settled down to labor in their com- 

[27] 



SWAYING TREE TOPS 

mon green. Their cheeks pufF out, 
and they are dark in the face as they 
blow with all their might into the 
fruit that hangs on the end of their 
stems. 

There is no power that could blow 
a pear out into real pear size and 
shape but a pear tree. It is a won- 
derful process, but how regular — 
natural — quiet. When man blows 
a glass bottle he makes smoke, noise, 
dust, odor, and irregular hours of 
labor. It is all artificial, and tears 
down human strength. The pear 
tree's work is natural, and builds up. 

Much of what we boast to be civili- 
zation is exactly the opposite. Those 
labors in life that interfere with 
natural, healthly development should 
not be called civilization, or if so 

[28] 



SWAYING TREE TOPS 

called, let civilization be defined as 
unnatural — barbarism. 

I am told that great industries are 
necessary; that great wheels which 
catch men now and then and kill 
them quickly, or if they do not catch 
them by accident at any rate kill 
them by degrees, must revolve night 
and day. Poor, deluded folk are thev 
who tell me this. Must revolve! Who 
says so? The needs of men. Bah! 
Man was just as happy, vastly more 
healthy, when he rowed across the 
river in a hollowed log, or swam 
across, than now when he crosses in a 
palace car on a steel trestle. 

But mind must be developed; all 
the progress called civilization de- 
notes developed mind. Does it? In 
the aggregate far from it. One 

[29] 



SWAYING TREE TOPS 

man's mind develops as he devises a 
machine. An hundred men's minds 
are enslaved by the toil and unnatural 
conditions of life while the patented 
thing is made into wood or steel. 

It is a far cry from the pear tree 
to the factory. The one is natural 
and healthy; the other is unnatural 
and diseased. The one is life; the 
other is death. The one tends upward 
in influence; the other tends down- 
ward. The one leads toward the 
spiritual; the other leads toward the 
material. 



[SO] 



Twenty-fold 

Like a great many birds, the robin 
has something to say in the morning 
and again at nightfall, but the mid- 
day hours are quiet so far as his voice 
is concerned. My curiosity as to his 
doings while so quiet has just been 
answered. I just now saw him within 
the deep green of a locust tree, sit- 
ting on a limb, as motionless as 
though carved from the wood. Robin 
is not an owl in his midday habits. 
Though motionless as I see him, he is 
not asleep. He will not remain on 
that locust bough long, but while he 
remains he will take his view calmly 
and quietly. Some nervous birds go 

[31] 



SWAYING TREE TOPS 

hopping about continually, flirting 
tail or wings, unable to spend a quiet 
moment. Robin is self -controlled, 
and though unheard, he is making 
observations. When he flies he knows 
where he intends to go. Always is 
this certainty attained as a result of 
self-control. 

Does human life lack the vigor of 
certainty? May we not say that it 
has come to this condition through 
purposeless activity — the lack of the 
midday observation hours — the hours 
of control? I am convinced that man 
needs above all things to observe and 
to think. The tendency to-day is to 
" do " things, in the sense of seeing 
hurriedly, of getting over so much 
territory before the time limit expires 
on the ticket. This is done instead 

[32] 



SWAYING TREE TOPS 

of getting all that any one scene has 
to say before going to the next. 

It is June now, and thousands of 
summer folk are crossing each other's 
paths, " touring " on limited tickets. 
This touring is the cause of nervous 
disorder. Nine out of ten of these 
touring folk will return home, full to 
the brim of bits of sight seeing that 
will help them not at all, for they 
will have seen nothing completely. 

A few weeks ago I loitered for the 
fifteenth or twentieth time on a 
mountain top that always is beauti- 
ful to me. I recollect no time when 
on that mountain that I have not 
seen a few tourists " taking it in." I 
have always watched them with a 
sense of pity that they were there 
only to go away and not have seen 

[33] 



SWAYING TREE TOPS 

the mountain at all. They clamber 
up the rocky steps, they stand five 
minutes on the point, they read an 
inscription or two about the battle- 
field, then they consult their time- 
pieces and rush to the car that takes 
them to their train. Later in some 
other part of the country they will 
tell how they " saw " the mountain, 
while in reality they have not seen it. 
They do not see who thus " do " 
things. 

If it be twenty times that I have 
tramped the mountain side and sum- 
mit, it is twenty fold that I have 
seen of sky, and shadow, and valley, 
and distant blue ridge of hills. I sit 
on sunset rock and look at the tree- 
covered slope which falls rapidly 
a thousand and a half of feet and 

[34] 



SWAYING TREE TOPS 

then runs out in the level of the val- 
ley for a mile or more, breaks into 
rolling hills, and mounts the other 
side as precipitously as it falls away 
below me. In the mornings, looking 
at this view, a sense of the delightful 
freshness of the unspoiled, because 
untouched, vale and mountain comes 
upon me. Looking later, when the 
sun's rays are direct, and the purple 
haze has deepened in the canon, the 
intense quiet of the hour dispels my 
morning haste, and I am content to 
lie tranquilly with half -closed eyes, 
dreaming that what I see is a fore- 
look at one of those beautiful, 
heavenly valleys that God shall show 
me, perhaps, in the aftertime. Look- 
ing thus on a summer noonday at a 
haze-flooded valley, the real and the 

[S5] 



SWAYING TREE TOPS 

unreal are so intermingled that I can- 
not tell their differences. I will not 
be positive that that is real smoke 
from a cabin chimney yonder on 
Raccoon's side. Perhaps the note of 
a cowbell, as its wearer, lying in the 
shade below, brushes the flies from 
her back, is only my fancying. 

A cloud covers the sun. The 
shadows thicken into one, and I find 
that in an instant the real stands out 
to meet me in its evening mood. 
While I have been dreaming the 
hours have passed, and the cooler 
breeze of evening comes along the 
mountain crest. I have seen but one 
view. It has taken a half day. I 
drop down the steep path to a spring 
which blows its coolness from a moun- 
tain crevice. I have been here before 

[36-} 



SWAYING TREE TOPS 

— others, too. Now as I come I am 
aware of someone filling a bucket. 
It is a girl. She has not seen me, 
nor heard. The aisles of the forest 
are carpeted for trespassers. With 
filled bucket she turns down the path 
that leads to the cabin whose noon- 
day smoke I saw. I have little time 
to "note" her, but one thing I do 
see. She has a flower on her dress. 
It probably is not a violet, but what 
is it? I must come here again, then 
perhaps I shall find out. I am glad 
no hmited ticket made me attempt to 
" do " the mountain which I have just 
begun to see. Yes, I shall come here 
again. 



[37] 



Back to Eden 

The bluif was high along the shore 
of the lake. The afternoon sun was 
direct upon it. The heat had driven 
some folks within the cottages, others 
lay under the trees, further back 
from the bluff. The reflection on 
the water was dazzling, and no one 
seemed inclined to look at it. No 
one except a lone fisherman who sat 
in the stern of his anchored boat, call- 
ing distance away from the shore, 
and watched from beneath his um- 
brella the sleeping bobber on his line. 
Nature had left her housekeeping 
for awhile and was resting. 

About five o'clock she awoke; 

[88] 



SWAYING TREE TOPS 

sat up and shook her garment a 
little where she had been lying. A 
breeeze rippled the water, and the 
topmost leaves on the trees stirred 
slightly. The sun had dropped until 
the rays now slipped over the bank 
and out through the upper branches 
of the trees. The fisherman had 
pulled up his anchor and was rowing 
slowly ashore. The cottage doors 
were opened to the evening, and one 
by one the cottagers appeared from 
their afternoon retirement. Children 
began playing on a pier and among 
some boats drawn up on the beach. 
A launch, here and there, betrayed 
its hiding place, backed out into the 
water and started away, its heart 
beating as though it were afraid of 
a pursuer. Across the lake some 

[39] 



SWAYING TREE TOPS 

cows that had been standing to their 
backs in the water waded ashore and 
spread out over the meadow, crop- 
ping the grass as they went. The 
yellow stubble field caught the even- 
ing sun, and was regilded with its 
mellow light. A rattling wagon went 
over the rise in the road beyond the 
field, and the dust in its wake drifted 
slowly across the roadside. It was 
an evening when peace was the spirit 
of everything ; everything was in love 
and league with everything else. A 
note of discord would have struck 
terror to all, for that note would 
have been unexpected. 

To view and breathe the beauty 
and quiet of such a scene is to become 
part of it, and wish never for a 
separation. Thus I felt as I sat at 

[40] 



SWAYING TREE TOPS 

the water's side, where the ripples 
softly brushed the sand, and waited 
for the message of the hour. The 
day before I had been in the racket 
and rush of the city, where men and 
women and children exist. Com- 
monly, one writing of the city will 
speak of its slums as though they 
were its characteristics. This is not 
the truth, however. You must go to 
the best and busiest thoroughfares 
and there you find the city. The slum 
lacks soap. Take the soap away 
from the better appearing quarter 
and it will be a slum. The morals 
of the slum are about equal to 
the morals of the better appearing 
section. To us sin and dirt look worse 
than sin and clean raiment. To the 
Greater One there is no difference. 

[41] 



SWAYING TREE TOPS 

The city of to-day is the danger 
spot in our civilization. It lures to 
death the best and purest manhood 
and womanhood of the land. The 
strong true American sons and 
daughters of the soil who have 
been developed through four genera- 
tions, drawn to the city, lose their 
identity, their sense of responsibility, 
and their moral sensitiveness in a 
decade. If this land is to keep its 
pristine vigor, the call of the city 
must be hushed. The attraction of 
the artificial and unnatural must be 
offset by a call back to the beauty 
and vigor and purity of the country. 
The architectural appearance of the 
average American city is matched 
by the average morality. Both are 
vulgar, crass, materialistic. The 

[42] 



SWAYING TREE TOPS 

problem given by the city is not the 
beautifying of streeets and the eleva- 
tion of civic morals while the attrac- 
tion is continued in a call for more 
country product. The problem of 
the city is to destroy its fascination 
for the country man and woman. 

It is refreshing to-day to find the 
individual who, coming to the city 
for a season, goes back to his moun- 
tain, lake, or prairie home, glad to 
escape to its refuge, and glad to stay 
there. That man is the hope of the 
future. He is the one who is not led 
away from what is healthful and 
natural to what is veneered with 
those things, but beneath is artificial- 
ity and disorder. That man finds the 
Eden of to-day, and has strength 
enough to reject the tempter, who 

[48] 



SWAYING TREE TOPS 

points to the tree of knowledge and 
says, " Its fruits shall open the eyes, 
and thou shall know and see the city 
beneath yonder smoky cloud on the 
distant horizon." He rejects the fruit 
of the tree that will reveal the city. 
Other fruit there is, whose flavor is 
times more delicate and whose satis- 
faction more enduring. What cares 
that man for the city — he prefers the 
freshness, and beauty, and spiritual 
life of his country Eden. Blessed is 
that man because of his conmion 
sense. 

Some resident of the city — some 
devotee at its shrine, takes exception 
to this. But let such one know that 
cities are not productive of men. The 
city takes the country's offering be- 
cause it must have it to endure. 

[44 ] 



SWAYING TREE TOPS 

Separated from the continual supply 
of fresh country product, fifty years 
would suffice to make the city the 
destroyer of itself. 

I raise a voice against the attrac- 
tion of the city. I praise the country. 
Preferably five years of country, 
than seven of life in a city that I 
know. A life of quietness, thought- 
fulness, and simplicity by lake or 
mountain or on plain will make the 
genuineness of thought and purity of 
blood of which great life that walks 
the earth and rises heavenward must 
ever be composed. 

So ran my meditation by the quiet 
lake at sunset. The sky, westward, 
red at the horizon, was shading into 
orange toward the zenith. One cloud, 
a floating bit of glory, went away to 

[45] 



SWAYING TREE TOPS 

rest before it should be called to take 
its place among the forerunners of 
the dawn. One star burned through 
the orange as the evening darkened. 
One thought of thankfulness for the 
message to a tired heart was mine. 



[46] 



A Contented Trio 

The tree that spread out over the 
veranda roof sent one of its branches 
close against my chamber window. 
This branch brushed against the 
screen till it awakened me. When 
I raised the shade and looked out, 
the morning light was full on the 
east leaves of the tree, though the 
west branches were untouched as 
yet. The mountain across the val- 
ley stood clear and distinct, so that 
a white road, winding up the side, 
could be traced even at my dis- 
tance of four miles. The branch that 
swayed against the window did more 
than awaken me. It mapped the day 

[47] 



SWAYING TREE TOPS 

by its persistent beckoning toward 
the mountain. A slight shower of 
the evening before added to the per- 
suasion of the tree top, and, break- 
fast over, I was away to cross the 
valley and climb the mountain. 

The delightful freshness of a 
morning after a shower, when every 
leaf upon the trees is washed and 
shining in the morning sun, when 
every bush sends up its distinctive 
odor, when even the weeds along the 
path have been cleansed of their dust 
and seem to attempt to start the day 
free from the reproach that goes with 
weedhood — all this freshness is su- 
preme delight. 

To cross the valley was an hour's 
journey. That walk was disagree- 
able on a hot day with dust settling 

[48] 



SWAYING TREE TOPS 

upon one, but in the morning after 
a shower it was a journey that one 
would care not to miss. It was 
not long before the mountain's foot 
was reached, and the trail led upward 
through a woods so dense that be- 
ginning and end of journey were 
lost to view. Sometimes the ascent, 
steep and abrupt, led around huge 
fallen rocks which, cast off above by 
the frost of winter, had fallen and 
threatened peril to the village below. 
Again the trail ran out into the open, 
along a shoulder of the mountain, 
and then I could see the long way 
back to distant ridge and further 
mountain, which led to thoughts of 
what lay beyond them. Thus the 
morning passed, as I was going up- 
ward with the sun. When it had 

[49] 



SWAYING TREE TOPS 

reached the zenith, I had reached the 
mountain top. 

My way led along the crest to the 
southward, winding in and out 
through dense woods which thwarted 
the efforts of the sun to reach the 
ferns beneath. Here and there were 
clearings where a dog barked, and 
I suspected a cabin or cottage. Ven- 
turing through the gate in front of 
one of these clearings, a path that 
wound through the corn and by the 
berry bushes led me, as I hoped, to 
the cottage. It came into view, hid- 
den partly by a half dozen great 
oaks that stood about like senti- 
nels. A dog came wiggling from 
behind the cottage, one eye full of 
suspicion, the other full of friendli- 
ness. A cat lay on the deserted ver- 

[50] 



SWAYING TREE TOPS 

anda, and a sofa pillow wilted against 
the back of a rocking chair. Wher- 
ever these three are seen — dog, cat, 
and sofa pillow — know that your 
welcome is assured. If only a dog 
greets you, beware! he may be ugly. 
If you see a cat only and it dashes 
away at j^our approach, be sure 
the inmates of the house are not 
fond of company. If there is no 
sofa pillow, no one sits out at even- 
ing to watch the moon rise, and the 
parlor is dark and uninviting. But 
when the happy combination exists — 
dog, cat, and sofa pillow — walk up 
boldly and knock. 

I did so this time. It was the heat 
of the noon hour, and no one was 
stirring. The second knock brought 
a response, a door opened, and some- 

[51] 



SWAYING TREE TOPS 

one came down the stairs and along 
the cool hall. "What is it?" asked 
a voice, and I knew I had no need to 
fear being turned away without an 
answer. Had the question been 
" Who is it? " I would not have been 
so sure of a welcome. 

" Is this the road to the Falls? " 

" Yes, straight on about two 
miles." 

" Would you mind if I rested on 
your veranda awhile? " 

" No. I'll bring a chair." 

" There is one here." 

" Is there? Oh, yes," as she pushed 
the door open and looked. 

"Would you like a drink?" 

I did not object, and so she went 
for a dipper of water, while I sat 
there wondering where I had seen 

[52] 



SWAYING TREE TOPS 

that face before. Eyes of brown, 
and full red cheeks, and hair raised 
over forehead in the mode of the day. 
I knew from this that she had seen 
other girls w^ho perhaps wore violets 
in June. When she returned with 
the water it came to me suddenly. 
This is the girl I saw one day, stoop- 
ing at the spring on the moun- 
tain side, when I came unobserved 
through the woods. When I spoke 
about the coolness of the water, and 
she said it was from a spring a short 
distance away, then I knew for a 
certainty that it was she whom I saw 
the day when I lay above on the rock 
and noticed the smoke coming from 
a chimney hidden among the trees. 
I remembered, too, that then she 
wore a flower, and she was thereby 

[53] 



SWAYING TREE TOPS 

admitted to the select company 
whose symbol is the violet. 

The road that ran ahead to the 
Falls, my intended destination, lay 
blistering in the noon-day heat, and 
it was not as inviting as the cool of 
the veranda. It was more pleasant 
to sit there and watch the distant 
shadows trailing across the valley and 
up the forested slopes while I listened 
to the voice of this mountain girl. 
We talked about the quiet of the hill 
home, about its uneventful life, 
changed only as the seasons changed, 
about its gift of an atmosphere for 
meditation and for innocence. There 
was some little hint now and then in 
her conversation of a visit prolonged 
with city friends, but ever there was 
the note of contentment, and the in- 

[54] 



SWAYING TREE TOPS 

sight which valued this mountain 
cottage above all else. 

There came a gray-haired old man 
from the orchard, and when he saw 
me he turned aside to the path be- 
hind the house, but here the girl 
stopped him, and I knew him as her 
grandfather, and I took of the fruit 
offered from his basket. From him 
I guessed whence came her love of 
the place, for he was one who had 
the manner of nature's child, grow- 
ing old as nature doth ripen fruit. 
Those eyes had not looked long on 
men rushing and jostling each other 
for a footing. Those lines upon the 
forehead and about the eyes were 
not the lines which nervous worry 
draws across the face it strains and 
buffets. The respect with which he 

[55] 



SWAYING TREE TOPS 

greeted his grand-daughter was not 
that which came from a man who had 
looked upon women as a pastime. 
If my talk ran into the channel with 
his, it was not through indifference 
to her who sat near, but because his 
conversation seeemed to be so like 
her own that it was one wide current 
of her mind and his. 

I wondered if her mother, to whom 
she had referred, was like her and 
him. I thought of such a trio, living 
the life of natural beauty and sim- 
plicity, and the charm of it kept me 
silent so long I quite forgot where 
I was. It was only when the old man 
went away with his basket, and the 
cat I had forgotten sprang upon my 
knee, that I came back to the fact 
that I had rested long enough and 

[56] 



SWAYING TREE TOPS 

had no reasonable excuse for remain- 
ing longer. It pleased me to hear the 
girl say, as I left, that I must stop 
again whenever I came by their cot- 
tage. 

In the late afternoon while the sun 
was still upon the mountain, but had 
set for the valley to the eastward, I 
went down through the gorge, where 
the water tumbled frantically and 
the path was overhung with vines, 
and, walking fast, came at dusk to 
the edge of the valley just as the 
lights were beginning to flash out 
one by one. Across to the home on 
the other side was a journey in the 
dark, but when I reached it I found 
the branch upon the tree silvered with 
the light of the rising moon. 



[57] 



The Plotless Life 

There is one advantage that I have 
when I let the tree top suggest my 
thought and rule my imagination. 
Time and space are as nothing. I 
may be following the windings of a 
stream between its banks of cat-tails 
and rushes to-day — to-morrow I may 
be wandering across the prairie land 
by farm and village — and day after 
to-morrow I may be listening to the 
whistling bouy and bell by the sea. 
If one has tired, he may lay down 
the book and open it again days later, 
at another place, and go on without 
missing any thread of a narrative, for 
there is none. 

Life has no plot, if it be right. 

[ 58 ] 



SWAYING TREE TOPS 

Each day is complete in the Hfe 
worth while. Wise is the man who 
makes his day complete, for he sleeps 
well each night, and it matters not 
whether he wakes here or there. I 
always associate a plot and a villain. 
Honest folk bother not with plot. I 
pray you, take up a day of life and 
make it come within one sketch. Do 
not write across the page at nightfall, 
" To be continued." If you do, you 
may unwittingly tell a lie. 

A present-day mischief is the senti- 
ment that to-day is preparation — to- 
morrow will be life. To-day is my 
life and yours. If we are moved to 
take an enjoyment by an hour off to- 
morrow, let us take the hour off to- 
day. Let us go to the cemetery and 
admire the autumn foliage or the 

[59] 



SWAYING TREE TOPS 

spring green to-day, when we can 
walk above ground. We shall not 
get much enjoyment to-morrow, 
when they let us down slowly into a 
dark hole that shuts away the view of 
gorgeous tree or greening bush. To- 
day the door swings wide on hinges, 
to-morrow the lid is screwed down. 

I have no apology to offer for the 
lack of plot in these chapters. I have 
made each as complete as I could. 
They are not models of style, nor 
anything, that I know. I have tried, 
and am trying, to say something to 
offset the notion that the city is the 
mecca of life. I would call heart and 
mind back to the world God has 
made. Let us cease to worship our 
own handiwork, for it is just such 
stuff as any man could make. Sup- 

[60] 



SWAYING TREE TOPS 

pose there is more beef raised to-day, 
and the steel output is larger. Does 
beef taste any better? Does the man 
who rolls the steel enjoy life any 
more than he did two decades ago? 
A negative answer is likely the proper 
one. Therefore, let us cease to brag 
about our material resources, for 
they are not necessarily an aid to 
spiritual progress. 

A man may be a good man, and 
yet if he is ever emphasizing the 
material, he is responsible for certain 
corrupting influences in life. I^et me 
explain. I note that reform in city 
affairs is slow, and that corruption is 
swift footed. I note that good men 
are unstable in combination, and that 
bad men hold together. This ques- 
tion has been in my mind — what uni- 

[61] 



SWAYING TREE TOPS 

fies the men of corruption? Is graft 
a stronger unifying force than the 
simple motive of righteousness? It 
seems so, and it is because we run to 
the emphasis of the material and 
neglect the spiritual. 

Another example of this tendency 
to materialize life I would put on 
this page. Time was when music 
was the expression of soul harmony. 
It is true yet where real music is 
found, but the fittest symbol of this 
mechanical age is the pianola. It 
grinds out the melodies, the har- 
monies, in that cold, regular fashion 
that would drive Beethoven, Liszt, 
Wagner, Chopin, to suicide. Yet I 
have seen a pianola in a Bishop's 
home! A new crusade — the birth- 
place of our Lord must be saved from 

[62] 



SWAYING TREE TOPS 

the pork packer and the manufac- 
turer of soulless things! 

This morning was a spring morn- 
ing in autumn. A thunderstorm 
occurred last night. As I looked 
from the window two disconnected 
lines ran in my mind : 

" Morning's at seven. 
The hillside's dew-pearled." 

Both lines were true. I climbed 
the hill, and the mist was hanging 
over the river. All about me was the 
fresh and healthful world of the day 
spring. The mist lifted and drifted, 
more and more of the earth was re- 
vealed, the river and the distant hills. 
My heart and fancy were increasing- 
ingly touched. Such is ever true. 
There is always more to nature — 
ever widening prospects — a new and 

larger call. 

[63] 



Straight-line Effects 

How satisfying are the simpler 
pleasures! Would that men might 
realize that pleasure is not neces- 
sarily a compound of sensations. It 
may be a single emotion derived from 
the quiet, simple, unostentatious in 
life. Through the influence of the 
idea that all things must work to- 
gether for good before happiness is 
realized there is many a strained and 
worried look where there is sufficient 
cause for happiness. There is no 
ground for self-approval when we 
feel happy as a result of a fortunate 
combination of circimistances. We 
would be dolts, indeed, did we not 

[64] 



SWAYING TREE TOPS 

respond when all things conspire to 
bless us. No one may rightly praise 
himself unless he is of that sensitive- 
ness which receives pleasure from a 
single emotion. 

For instance, contrast the furnish- 
ing of two rooms. One is the abode 
of the individual who desires the or- 
nate or garish thing about him. If he 
is wealthy, he will have elaborate carv- 
ings, highly colored hangings, a con- 
fusion of elements in the furnish- 
ings. If he be of little means, he will 
have flashy prints, gimcracks, and 
things with quantities of varnish. 
The other room is the abode of him 
who sees beauty in the plain, simple, 
genuine article. The doors are not 
paneled, but are plain slabs of oak, 
which make one think of the forest. 

[65] 



SWAYING TREE TOPS 

The casements are ungrooved. The 
table is heavy and solid, and the chair 
is uncarved, unvarnished. Such a 
room as instanced first is an exhibi- 
tion of confusion. The second room 
is the revelation of order. Elaborate- 
ness is unnecessary for beauty, and 
also for pleasure. Singleness of 
effect is real beauty, so real pleasure. 
The straight line has just as much in 
its favor as the curve. There is no 
reason why it should be less beauti- 
ful. Is a right angle any more severe 
than a circle? Some think so, be- 
cause their ancestors have been look- 
ing so long at circles. If a circle is 
the line of beauty, the drunken man 
cuts a finer figure along the street 
than he who goes the shortest way 
between two points. 

[66] 



SWAYING TREE TOPS 

There is no intricate design in the 
object which yields real pleasure. 
There is just as much pleasure in an 
apple as in a glass of cider, in a grape 
as in a drop of wine. The one is ready 
at hand, the other man designed. 
There is as much pleasure possible 
in the two hours before 10 p. m. as 
in the two after 10 p. m. There is 
as much enjoyment in sitting on the 
grass under a tree with a far, fair 
prospect of sky and hill, as there is 
in sitting on a plush divan, in a stuffy 
reception hall while looking at imita- 
tion of sky and field. Moreover, 
when you leave your friend in the 
first instance you grasp his hand full 
and cordially, and if you never see 
him again remember the w^armth of 
that clasp; while in the second in- 

[67] 



SWAYING TREE TOPS 

stance, when you leave your friend 
you touch your two fingers to his and 
remember only the silliness of the 
thing. 

The idea that pleasure is com- 
pounded out of a variety of ingredi- 
ent emotions has set people on a 
chase for it. I have yet to hear of 
such a chaser ever overtaking his ob- 
ject. It requires sensitiveness to feel 
pleasure. The blase, the world-cal- 
loused, feel it not. 

This morning the bare trees stand 
stripped of leaves, the grass is brown, 
frost lies over everything. A cloudy 
sky caps down the landscape with 
gloom. There is no bird note, nor 
sign of life. Not many weeks ago 
the air at morning was vibrant with 
melody, but, as this chill has settled 

[68] 



SWAYING TREE TOPS 

down, the birds with their songs have 
escaped the hfeless prison. Birds fly 
away before the chill comes in the air. 
Seek them where the sunshine filters 
through the leaves. Has joy gone 
out of your heart? Perhaps it flew 
away before the chill comes in the air. 
world spirit entered your life. Let 
the sunlight of simplicity radiate your 
realm, then shall the notes of glad- 
ness resound again. 



[69] 



A Wintry Vale 

I WAS walking to-day through a 
vale where the bones of last sum- 
mer's beauty were scattered on either 
hillside. It was a cheerless prospect. 
Fallen tree trunk, and brush, and 
dead grass without a hint of color 
were scattered all about, while up 
through this stood the gaunt, bare 
trees, silent, mournful. It was like a 
walk through a field of graves. A 
stillness like the tomb was in the vale. 
The wind sighing across the valley 
would have been a relief — but even 
wind was dead. 

Had this prospect of death been 
extensive, there would have been for 

[70] 



SWAYING TREE TOPS 

me a certain interest awakened by the 
view of far-stretching woodland and 
hillside, but the vale was limited. In 
sight was its border, and I knew all 
that lay beyond. 

Some lives are like this wintry vale. 
We should not consider a cold, stern 
life as deserving censure. There 
may have been a winter in that life. 
The only thing that justly deserves 
censure is the limited prospect, which 
is so often in evidence. There is 
no extent of view. It is shut in — 
you see all at a glance. This only, the 
limitation, may properly be disap- 
proved. 

That vale, which is so barren and 
desolate to-day, may become clothed 
with the beauty of verdure in a few 
months. Then I shall not notice even 

[71] 



SWAYING TREE TOPS 

its small extent. Thus even the cold, 
gloomy, narrow life may be changed. 
It may become warmed by friendship, 
and the flower of its own nature may 
spring out in response. So its limi- 
tations shall be half unnoticed. 

There lies the hope for many. If 
they cannot be broad, limitless in sur- 
prises, they can be intense and satisfy- 
ing for the stranger. 



[72] 



The Retreat of Life 

The trees are very beautiful this 
morning, as they stand sheeted with 
ice in the sunlight. This is winter's 
final victory. Months ago the first 
frost touched the verdure and with- 
ered it. The leaves clung a few 
weeks longer to the branches, then, 
hopelessly, let go their grasp and 
fluttered to the earth, there to be 
chased by the winds. The trees stood 
bare awhile. Sometimes, in the win- 
ter gale, they seemed to be protesting 
loudly at their rough treatment; 
anon, they stood still and waited. I 
wonder if they were quiet so that 
they might be fettered thus. Any- 
how, this morning they are impris- 
oned by the grim ice king, as though, 

[7.S] 



SWAYING TREE TOPS 

while they were sleeping, an enemy 
had come and walled them in. 

The trees wear this cold beauty 
quietly, patiently, without a murmur. 
Though so quiet, I know there is life 
at their hearts, waiting its time to 
issue from this icy prison. 

This is the lesson for all life in tree 
or man. Though it be surprised in 
the night, bound fast by the enemy, 
let it retreat to the warm chambers of 
the heart and wait. The sun is far 
away just now, oblique its rays, but 
it is swinging nearer day by day, and 
under its warm influence without, 
and the heart-life within, the tree 
shall clothe itself with the greenery 
of the perfect spring. So, too, man 
shall grow glad again, though now 
he waits fettered by cold sorrow. 

[74] 



SWAYING TREE TOPS 

In these gray winter mornings 
there is still one tie that holds me to 
the spring. It is a little brown bird 
whose song rings out clear, full, and 
sweet. I wonder why he has chosen 
to remain here when he might have 
flown away to a warmer land. He 
seems to be the only one of his kind, 
for I hear only his song. To-day, 
sitting on the icy limb, he whistles 
as though it were a June morning. 
I am glad that there is one bird left 
after summer has departed — one 
bird whose song is my matins and 
vespers. If I feel not kindly toward 
the cold morn, this bird assumes my 
obligations, and raises a song to 
heaven. Sing on, thou only bird, and 
thou shalt have my heart with thee! 



[75] 



The Going of the Past 

He journeyed yesterday into the 
Other Land. He was the last of his 
generation. As he lay in the large 
room of the old house, the simple 
service read over him seemed in keep- 
ing with the quiet simplicity of his 
presence, when he had been about the 
house in the strength of his ripe old 
age. He had been a man of the old 
school, white-haired, fair-faced, with 
a certain tone about him, often af- 
fected by some, but never uncon- 
sciously. His manner of holding his 
cheroot between his fingers, as he sat 
by the fireplace reading, now and 
then deliberately drawing in the 
smoke, marked him as different from 

[76] 



SWAYING TREE TOPS 

the present-day man who nervously 
chews the end of his cigar. 

Such departures bring vividly be- 
fore us the going of the past. It is 
not " dozing in the present, and 
dreading the future," to dream of the 
past. It is not to underestimate the 
present to value the past. There was 
an elegance, a reserve, a refinement 
about the life of fifty years ago which 
is not in evidence to-day, except as it 
is seen in some lingering representa- 
tive of the old school, such as this 
one w^ho left yesterday. Perhaps 
fifty or seventy-five years hence this 
new material age of to-day will have 
become softened and refined, and 
then will have true beauty, but now it 
stands crass, irreverent, iconoclastic. 



[77] 



Plenty of Time 

There are parts of our country 
where I love to linger. There is 
sentiment in the very air one breathes. 
I seem there to settle back into the 
heart of things, to feel that unalloyed 
happiness and contentment which re- 
sult from an intermingling of the 
poetry and prose of life. In such 
places poverty is even shorn of its dis- 
tress. There is the tradition of bet- 
ter days and evidences of ancestral 
pride. 

That which makes the poverty of 
the commercial centers so terrible to- 
day is the coarseness, vulgarity, and 
utter lack of any touch of refinement. 
The spirit of " get there and have " 

[78] 



SWAYING TREE TOPS 

works, in the successful, the spectacle 
of a veneered, showy society, dwell- 
ing in imitation palaces; in the un- 
successful, squalid poverty and dirt. 

So, I take to the life that is re- 
moved from the little hurries and the 
great. In the atmosphere of plenty 
of time I walk the quaint streets of 
towns whose church bells were cast, 
perhaps, in foundries across the sea, 
yet ring just as clear in the Sab- 
bath quiet as when they first spoke 
from the century-old steeples; or, I 
go along the shaded road which leads 
by the opulent plantation, over whose 
great-house the live oak stretches; 
or, I wind up the mountain trail to 
the ranch buildings which overlook 
the far-stretching acres. 

And I am content to live slowly, 

[79] 



SWAYING TREE TOPS 

for there is plenty of time in this 
great universe of God; and that 
which will be fit to abide forever must 
not know hurry. That live oak, 
standing over the great-house, has 
seen so many generations of weeds 
come up and die. That redwood on 
the mountain side was there when 
Columbus waded ashore on San 
Salvador. 



[80] 



A Southerner to the Last 

They said, when the General died, 
that he was the last of the great 
men of the Confederacy; the last he- 
roic figure of the Lost Cause. He 
was born and educated, he labored, 
fought, and died in the same section 
of his heart's land. He represented 
the highest type of native. Southern 
manhood. He was a man of convic- 
tions, intrepid, chivalrous. He fought 
for the Confederacy for the same 
reason that other men fought for the 
Union. He believed that he was right. 
From his viewpoint he was right. 
For the same reason men to-day on 
both sides are right. If either crit- 

[81] 



SWAYING TREE TOPS 

icises the other, it is a mistake. The 
principles for which Confederate and 
Union man fought still live, and 
should live, but the war has closed 
and should so remain. 

The General, at the close of the 
war, accepted defeat as a man, and 
for over thirty years taught, by act 
and word, that war was over and 
that reconciliation was to be the final 
noble victory. 

It is not strange that there was a 
South and a North, or that there is a 
South and a North, or that there will 
continue to be a South and a North. 
Two homes stand side by side. In the 
face of a common peril the members 
go out together, but in the midst of 
peace they enjoy their own home 
circle. That circle is theirs — sacred. 

[82] 



SWAYING TREE TOPS 

Let South and North exist as they 
do to-day, side by side, yet distinct. I 
see no peril in such relation. It is 
natural. Let those who clamor for 
the impossible, turn rather to the de- 
velopment of the home spirit, which 
will make South and North, while 
distinct in temperament and ideals, 
yet friendly, neighborly. 

This General was a Southerner to 
the last. He loved his land and peo- 
ple. That is the reason his death was 
a blow, felt by mountaineer and val- 
ley man, and man in the Southern 
city. There comes to some the recol- 
lection of the days, fifty years ago, 
when he was a young man, and the 
South was over the threshold of a 
future bright with promise. To those 
of his age still remaining, there are 

[83] 



SWAYING TREE TOPS 

long thoughts of the simplicity, the 
cultured ease, the wide hospitality, of 
days before the devastation, and 
many fail to see in the future any re- 
development of that old life, and 
mourn, not only for the man gone, 
but for the days gone also. There 
are others, children of the General 
and his day, inheriting the tempera- 
ment and principles and native grain, 
who look more hopefully into the 
future, and are striving to make it 
like the best of the past. The chiv- 
alry of its men, the gentle pride of 
its women, will be again the features 
of a life built on the old foundations 
out of the ruins and remnants which 
have survived. Herein lieth hope and 
joy — not that there be no South and 
no North, but that there be both South 

[84] 



SWAYING TREE TOPS 

and North, preserving the family 
Ukeness. 

If the General was the last great 
figure of the Confederacy, there has 
arrived the time for new figures of 
the South, like him, only younger, 
who draw their vitality out of that 
past day hy breathing the atmos- 
phere of the present. ' And since an- 
cestry, climate, conditions, make in- 
dividuals whose viewpoints are nat- 
urally different, let no one from 
another ancestry and condition set 
the type and demand conformity 
thereto. Sad the time when one may 
not say: " There is a Southerner." 



[85] 



Voices of the Gorge 

Not least among the pleasures of 
traveling is that to be had when you 
leave the train at the last station and 
pass on afoot, ahorse, or by vehicle. 
You have then quite gotten away 
from the familiar, and your journey 
takes on the strange and unexpected. 
Wherever the road from the station 
may lead, it is certain there will be 
scenes and experiences, new, and 
unpremeditated, and these are the 
stages of a journey most valued by 
the true rambler. There is a sense of 
freedom, the joy of living every 
moment separately and to the full, 
that takes one away from his past and 
holds one from unwise looks into the 

[86] 



SWAYING TREK TOPS 

future. This conies only when the last 
whistle of the departing train is heard. 

The station building on the Santa 
Fe was made of boards, nailed ])er- 
pendicularly, and there was no plat- 
form but a bed of cinders. The few 
houses about the station were wide 
apart and surrounded by sage bush. 
The sandy roads ran across each other 
for a half mile square, dragging the 
houses with them, then all the houses 
were dropped and a single road went 
on up the sloping valley to the foot- 
hills, five miles distant. While the 
road could " shake " the houses and 
leave them tumbled behind, it could 
not leave us, and its very independ- 
ence, as it went mountainward, was 
its attractiveness. 

The air was heavy with the odor of 

[87] 



SWAYING TREE TOPS 

the bush, the road dusty, and the sun 
glaringly bright. Shade was want- 
ing, as always the last thing to make 
completeness is not found. 

The five miles were lessening with 
every stride. Four — three — two — 
and then the shadow of the moun- 
tains, stretching down the valley, re- 
ceived us into its protection, and all 
we carried of our discomfort was our 
thirst. But all things work together 
for good to the wayfarer upon the 
earth. To quench the thirst of the 
hot trail there flowed out of the canon 
the snow waters of the peaks. Where 
it flowed from the gorge, rushing 
with much noise and foam, we tarried 
on the bank and pitched our camp. 
While one made ready the camp, the 
other shot the rabbit and the quail 
for the Sunday-morrow pot. Then 

[88] 



SWAYING TREE TOPS 

while the hunter dressed his meat, the 
camper vanished up the darkening 
gorge. 

The hour between sunset and dark, 
in the land of the mountains, is the 
hour the camper loves. He feels that 
he could wander ever in the darken- 
ing gorges, and never once feel that 
they were gloomy. All voices of the 
wild are distinct at that hour. They 
may be intermingled, yet with little 
difficulty each voice may be distin- 
guished, telling its secrets as a child 
does when it falls off to sleep. 

The camper, as he picked his foot- 
ing among the boulders where the 
stream rushed dow^n, heard the voice 
that told of snowy heights miles 
away, where the morning sun first 
shattered the icy crags with his lance 
and liberated the tiny stream that 

[89] 



SWAYING TREE TOPS 

started away so quickly it could 
not be imprisoned again. He heard 
that voice tell of the stream's 
acquaintance with others like itself, 
intent on escape — how they joined 
forces and felt the power of their 
union, as men who rightly estimate 
the value of companionship. Then 
the voice told of the cavern, through 
which the stream felt its way in the 
darkness, to meet at last the burst of 
noonday sunlight. So alternating — 
darkness and light — it ever rushed 
down and out, and on the morrow it 
would greet the dawn from the valley. 
There was another voice. It was 
a whisper among the pines, which 
crowded away from the foot of the 
gorge and mounted to the summit of 
the ridge, stepping on each other in 

[90] 



SWAYING TREE TOPS 

their haste. It was the voice of the 
evening breeze, that ever speaks of 
peace. " Be not so frantic to escape, 
pine tree," it said. " Tarry in this 
evening hour and think twice ere 
thou desert the stream." Sage advice 
for other than pine tree — for men 
who hear the voice of the waters and 
flee away to the heights, where, if 
they lose their footing, they fall to 
more than injury. 

The gorge had grown dark. The 
Sierras — snow covered — were flushed 
with rose. A halloo down the canon 
reminded the camper that the hunter 
had finished his task and had grown 
lonely. He retraced his steps and 
came upon that individual, doing his 
best to furnish smoke, while the fire 
did its part in heat and light. 

[91] 



Spring Waters 

It is greening time again. The 
cycle of the seasons has passed. One 
year ago a thunderstorm announced 
the advent of spring, and now the 
same thing has happened again. The 
rain of yesterday washed all the rust 
from the hills, and the color that glad- 
dens the heart is to be seen every- 
where. 

How many little streams there are, 
flowing down to form the Larger 
Water! Each is unknown to the 
others, till now and then two or three 
grow friendly, and flow on together 
chattering gaily in the sunlight. 
Streams do not refuse company; still 
they are very content to go on by 
themselves, each cleaning up its por- 

[92] 



SWAYING TREE TOPS 

tion of the hill. Each goes intently 
on its way — surmounting, surround- 
ing, undermining difficulties, rejoic- 
ing in its strength, rising higher and 
braver with every obstacle that falls 
in its course. Here and there little 
streams are running their separate 
life courses, to mingle finally in the 
great sea, and, losing their identity, 
become one great water. 

Take this as a Parable of Life. 
Each person in his course carrying 
away the rust of unsightliness, and 
leaving the canon of life fair, and 
green, and growing. He is un- 
known, in large measure, to his neigh- 
bors, save as a common task gives a 
common life. He gains in strength 
with every trial, until at last his life 
and others are mingled in the Life of 
God. 

[ Oti ] 



The Divine Adjustment 

A FOOTPATH led aside from the high- 
way, and I followed it. It wound 
through the thicket, and I emerged 
on a shoulder of the hill which gave a 
fair and high prospect of the river. 
I had not supposed that so much 
could be seen by so slight a change of 
location. A dozen rods had formed 
the circle of my view from the high- 
way. Two minutes' walk gave me 
an extensive landscape. 

To the traveler along the road of 
his ambition there are many little 
altitudes that call aside. 'Tis but a 
step to them, and yet the outlook is 
enlarged a hundred fold. There is 
always this Divine adjustment of 

[94] 



SWAYING TREE TOPS 

highway, side path, and altitude. 
Wherever one is found there are the 
others. But many miss the fortunate 
arrangement, and do not note the 
side paths which would enliven their 
journey. And when the}^^ do see 
them, how few take time to ad- 
vantage themselves thereby! 



[y5] 



The Hillside Sleepers 

Two miles away beyond the river, 
near to the top of the hillside, a few 
gravestones stand, plainly visible in 
the sunlight. They are gathered in 
an irregular line, white against the 
green slope. They are guarding 
the sleepers till the morning of the 
resurrection. At the distance where 
I stand I cannot count whether there 
are eight, or ten, or twelve. Some 
sleepers there are overlooked from a 
two-mile view. They belong to a 
little family of graves of which the 
white slabs tell the location and over 
which the cedars sing a requiem. 
Could those sleepers awake, and, 

[96] 



SWAYING TREE TOPS 

rising, go their paths, retracing the 
steps that brought them there, how 
far they would wander, how widely 
they would separate! From hamlet, 
valley, and city they have been gath- 
ered to their rest. Ambitions, loves, 
and earthly business led them, when 
alive, everywhere about their individ- 
ual pursuits. Their interests were 
large. Their names were known, 
perhaps famed, possibly revered. 
Some stir they made among men. 
But now they have been gathered to 
that spot, and all that tells they ever 
were, and where the green sod lies 
undulated above them, is that group 
of white stones on the brow of the 
hill. To the observer they are not 
only rounded with a sleep, but un- 
known save by a stone. 

[97] 



SWAYING TREE TOPS 

A human life is of supreme im- 
portance to the body which contains 
it, to the friends who love it, but how 
little the world cares for it, and when 
it once is gone how surely oblivion 
enfolds it! 



[98] 



The Garden of Quietness 

Out on the edge of the valley the 
redbuds are massed in beautiful pro- 
fusion. They stand level with the 
summit of the hill. A few days ago 
there was the slightest hint of color 
in the space where I knew, from last 
year, that I might expect their 
appearance. Day after day they 
have grown brighter, until this morn- 
ing they stand a gorgeous dash of 
color in the midst of a pale green 
landscape. 

It is wonderful how the great 
milliner trims these spring hills! 
What rare taste — all colors blend. 
The pronounced are softened by con- 
trast. All are harmonized by being 

L Of C [ 99 ] 



SWAYING TREE TOPS 

intermingled. The redbuds grow 
bright as the green of grass and leaf 
deepens about them. There are no 
sudden shocks for the eye, as one 
walks out these days. Everything is 
where it should be, as much of it as 
should be, at the time when it should 
be. 

Who knows the source of that joy 
spirit which comes to one walking in 
the outdoor world in spring? An- 
alyze the feeling. A heart light, a 
mind quick, a body filled with the 
sense of bouyancy. One hour in the 
spring sunshine, as it is warming into 
summer, does more for a tired body, 
a gloomy mind, a sad heart, than 
barrels of patent tonic. Why? Be- 
cause the season is that of harmony. 
Colors are blending to perfection. 

[100] 



SWAYING TREE TOPS 

Discords are unknown. The birds 
tune carefully to a common key. 
Harmony is Queen of Spring. 

Stay the unfolding of the new life 
on earth at this hour. It is all we 
could wish. Let it grow another 
week. It is fuller, but not more 
harmonious. So the spring joy is 
keen and full, because there is not a 
harsh note or color anywhere. 

This joy abiding will be possible 
when harmony is all about and within 
us continually. Live where the 
harmony is found. Why herd in 
self-made prisons, when the free air 
of earth blows softly through the 
green cathedrals, and the joyous sun- 
shine drops gently upon the leafy 
roofs? If men to-day would value 
less the companionship of each other 

[101] 



SWAYING TREE TOPS 

in the prison corridors, and make 
themselves fit to be good friends with 
themselves, out in God's world of 
fresh, harmonious, natural beauty, 
there would be much more to their 
lives and to their influence. 

" Seek peace and pursue it," says 
the Book. Therein is found the 
secret of joyful life. Seek peace 
would you find it. Go where it 
habitates. Peace is resident in the 
Garden of Quietness. Men make a 
clamorous place, and think that they 
shall entice peace to dwell therein. 
Peace is found in her garden among 
her trees and flowers. Men must go 
there to find her. As soon shall trees 
grow roots in air as peace dwell in 
the dens of noise. 



[ 102 ] 



Where Lilacs Bloom 

The old house is surrounded by 
lilac bushes. They are blooming now 
and the air is heavy with their fra- 
grance. It fills the garden and floats 
out even to the road, and the passerby 
turns as he scents the odor, and lo ! his 
memory has turned back a page in 
his life, and he sees the yard of the 
home of his youth, full of lilac bushes 
and violets. He is sitting on the 
shady side of the house, for the May 
sunshine is bright, and then the per- 
fume is sweetest on the side of 
the house where the bushes are. The 
old home place is at its best when the 
thick foliage of May enwraps it, 
making a bower of beauty. He can 

[ 103 ] 



SWAYING TREE TOPS 

sit on the veranda and not be seen 
from the path outside the fence, for 
the hedge is dense with leaves. 

That day so long ago, the boy sat 
thinking of the home, but not admir- 
ing it. He loved it, yet it seemed to 
him that it was pitifully small and 
old. For twenty years he had known 
it. Every spring, as long as he could 
remember, he had seen the lilacs 
bloom. With his home folks he had 
watched the seasons come and go. 
But, somehow, there was a growing 
discontent. He felt as though the 
leafy walls were prison bars. Out- 
side — away there were wider yards 
and sweeter flowers and finer houses. 
He must see them. As the winter 
had been passing, he had been speak- 
ing these thoughts to his folks. Now, 

[104] 



SWAYING TREE TOPS 

just a hint — now, a suggestion. But 
they understood as well as though he 
had explained all. Their boy was 
getting out of boyhood, and the call 
of the world was in his ears. 

Down in the kitchen, in the even- 
ing after he had gone to his room, his 
parents talked it over. " Our boy is 
restless. He wants to leave home. 
We cannot hold him here and we may 

as well consent, but " and they 

never finished the sentence, though 
they often talked thus far, and 
always ended thus. Yet each under- 
stood the other, and the sentence 
needed no ending. 

To-day, as the passerby caught the 
odor of the lilacs, he remembered all 
that past life. He remembered his 
departure one afternoon. He left his 

[ 105 ] 



SWAYING TREE TOPS 

mother weeping at the gate, his 
father drove in the wagon to the 
station. They said little, for both 
were near to tears. The boy was then 
almost minded to give up his going; 
but he went. 

The years passed and he came in 
vacation days back to the old place. 
It seemed smaller, but it grew dearer. 
He had learned that nothing outside 
the hedge was better than that within. 
But the stream of home experience 
was broken, and could never flow on 
as before. 

To-day, with these memories, there 
came the great realization, the les- 
son, as it comes to everyone, after 
experience. The little yard where 
our folks live — where the lilacs bloom 
in spring — where the simple, whole- 

[ 106 ] 



SWAYING TREE TOPS 

some home life runs on so quietly, 
there, as nowhere else upon the earth, 
does the joy of life conceal itself, but 
there, as nowhere else, can it be surely 
discovered and possessed. 



[107] 



When the Forest Closes In 

June has shut up all the avenues 
of far away prospect. The eye can- 
not pierce the foliage of one tree, 
to say nothing of the hundreds that 
have crowded together as a green 
barrier. There are times, windy 
days in early spring or still days 
in late autumn, when the heart 
craves the long vision; and one climbs 
the hill and gazes across the dimly 
greening landscape over which the 
shadows of the March clouds fly in 
startled fear; or one walks through 
the woods stripped of their leaves, 
and between the bare branches looks 
down the slope into the purple haze 

[108] 



SWAYING TREE TOPS 

that hangs over the land. One loves 
" out yonder " in those seasons. But 
in June one is enclosed on all sides 
by the dense foliage, and finds his 
enjoyment in shadow, and leaf, and 
flower odor. 

The honeysuckle climbing over the 
trellis has odor enough to fill the 
yard, but does not run over into 
the wide spaces of the outer world. 
If one ever grows content it is in this 
leafy month. Given only a place 
walled in by forest, some sunlight, a 
few birds and flowers, and there even 
a dyspeptic or nerve-shattered per- 
son will find solace. I must modify 
that by saying, if he wants solace. 
In this season one comes to a recogni- 
tion of the difl'erent wants of people, 
and it is made evident that they 

[109] 



SWAYING TREE TOPS 

get what they want. If you desire 
to get a true understanding of an in- 
dividual's spiritual constitution, learn 
how he takes his June holiday. 

Does he know nothing better than 
some enclosure, with a thousand ways 
of spending his money for a sensa- 
tion? Does he think that the corri- 
dors of a prison, otherwise known as 
a city, furnish pleasure to the 
prisoner therein? Or does he seek 
the place where men are forgotten, 
and nature is his hostess, bringing 
out to him the service of a banquet 
and a minstrelsy? The character of 
his spirit will be determined by these 
different June holidays. 

You may always judge the worth 
of a holiday by its close. Does it 
taper down to a point, and as dark- 

[110] 



SWAYING TREE TOPS 

ness comes you go home because 
there is nothing else to do? The day 
when nature acts as hostess has no 
such end. If the tree tops sway, 
increasing all the day in the vigor of 
their movements, as night draws on 
they subside into slower motions, and 
at last stand quiet against the even- 
ing sky. And then is when tree tops 
are eloquent. They whisper to each 
other as the cool breath of the night 
comes wandering along the lanes of 
the sky. Finally, by a common im- 
pulse, they cease to whisper, and 
listen to the robin and the thrush 
speak in whistle and liquid trill of 
what nature does for bird souls. The 
darkness rises like a tide up the hill, 
until the trees stand knee deep, then 
waist deep, then stretch out their 

[111] 



SWAYING TREE TOPS 

arms as though disinclined to wet 
their hands in the shadows. The tide 
stays ere it reaches the tree tops, and 
all the night the trees hold their heads 
above it. Toward the morning they 
shake themselves awake, to greet the 
sun without a shadow on their faces, 
as good friends ever greet each other. 



[112] 



A Blue-grass Idyl 

It was in the Blue Grass country, 
in the early summer, where one time 
I saw the girl with the violets. And 
there, I think, she had reached the 
highest type of physical beauty. A 
long ancestry, of which she was the 
flower, stretched back into the early 
decades of our country's settlement. 
A child of a section she might have 
been called. No land was as beautiful 
to her as the wide rolling meadow 
lands where she lived. No place so 
dear as that country home with its 
great trees, its house of lofty rooms 
and open halls. In that house she 
had been born, in it she had grown to 

[113] 



SWAYING TREE TOPS 

womanhood, about it clustered for 
her the dearest memories. 

It was the sunset hour. A golden 
haze hung over the fields. The girl 
walked down the long avenue that 
led from the house to the country- 
highway. Century-old trees arched 
above the lane. On either side sloped 
wide lawns bordered with hedges. 
Beyond the hedges stretched field on 
field of blue grass pasture land, 
where horses and cattle grazed. 
From the rear, in the region of the 
stables, came the voices of negroes at 
their evening tasks. 

The quiet of the hour and the pas- 
toral beauty were felt by the girl as 
she leaned over the gate at the road 
side. A light buggy, drawn by a 
slender-limbed, arch-necked horse, 

[114] 



SWAYING TREE TOPS 

came into view from the town two 
miles away. The driver glanced to- 
ward the gate, touched his hat, and 
sped by along the pike. The dust 
drifted over into the opposite field, 
and it was quiet again. On some low 
hills to the east the last rays of the 
sun lingered, and the girl's thoughts 
lingered with the sun upon the 
beauty of the scene which spoke to 
her so famiharly of a past that be- 
longed to her. 

The present, in all its richness of 
life, was not the growth of a year. 
A gaudy moving van had, in her 
memory, never passed up that long 
avenue to the house. Its furnishings 
had grown slowly, piece by piece, and 
for ten years she could not recall hav- 
ing seen an ornament or piece of f ur- 

[115] 



SWAYING TREE TOPS 

niture enter that home. Yet how well, 
in its elegant simplicity, it was fur- 
nished. Strangers in the town yon- 
der occasionally walked out, begging 
admittance to look at the paintings 
and furnishings. For the twenty- 
three years of her life there had been 
no change, and also no decay, and her 
mother's experience before her had 
been the same. She could not bear 
the thought of going out from that 
home. Evening could never be as 
fair as this one, in any other spot on 
earth. Could there come one whose 
words would woo her away from the 
house of her ancestors? To her the 
future did not lie wrapped up in 
a new experience whereunto love 
opened the door. That might be hers 
some day, yet no frenzy of anxiety, 

[116] 



SWAYING TREE TOPS 

such as possessed those in the nearby 
town, stirred her to desert that home. 
The roots of her hfe sank deep into 
the soil, as her father's had done, and 
she blossomed in her beauty a fore- 
token of the fruit of to-morrow. 



[117] 



The Summit of the Year 

Mid-summer is the summit in an 
out-of-door experience. You can look 
down one slope back to spring — 
along the other down to autumn. It 
is hard to say which slope is most 
attractive. 

It has been a wonderfully rich 
experience as one has traveled up- 
ward from the first hint of spring to 
the fulfillment of summer. The first 
tender promise of new life broke the 
hard surface of the earth into the 
smile of fair landscapes. The sun 
came earlier and stayed longer at his 
warming task. All about there was 
the race of flower, and leaf, and grass 

[118] 



SWAYING TREE TOPS 

blade, until the earth was billowed 
with foliage. At this moment of the 
summit season one can walk through 
aisles, dim and shadowy, and feel 
shut out from sky above and neigh- 
bors on all sides. As all this has 
been transpiring upon the earth, in 
one's heart and mind there has gone 
on a like transformation, by the 
arousing of the dormant faculties, 
the warming of the heart, the racing 
of the better motives, until one's ex- 
perience billows up, full and fra- 
grant, making many a path of seclu- 
sion, where one may walk at will and 
enjoy an evening quiet. All this has 
been. It is a certainty. 

On the other slope the swift days 
run down to the gate of autumn, 
which stands ajar awaiting them. 

[119] 



SWAYING TREE TOPS 

Through the yellow grain fields their 
light feet hurry, over the brown, 
dried meadow land, and across the 
brook that is but a rivulet in the sum- 
mer drought, staying not, but intent 
on the orchards and radiant woods 
beyond the gate. During these hur- 
rying days many things grow into 
maturity, and the day of seed on tree, 
weed, and flower rules everywhere. 

One puts out a hand now and then 
to keep from rushing down the slope 
too fast. There are many minutes 
which one wishes might be hours. 
There is that country walk along a 
highway bordered by fields of corn 
and harvested grain. Here are 
meadows, and sheep lie along the 
fences. There in the corner of the 
pasture the cattle stand close to keep 

[ 120 |1 



SWAYING TREE TOPS 

the flies from their sides. And the 
country road Hes straight away, 
washed clean of dust by last night's 
rain. 

Or again, it is Sabbath morning, 
and the country by the lake lies rest- 
ing from the toil of the weekday. 
The water is as calm as the face of 
patience. No wind is stirring, no 
ripples even lap against the sand. 
The path runs down to the beach, 
then climbs the hill and wanders 
across the pasture to the highway, 
over the bridge by the willows, and 
then across the boggy place to find 
the shore again. The sun hangs half 
way up the eastern sky. The only 
shadows are those cast by the trees 
upon the margin of the lake. No 
clouds anywhere, but blue sky over 

[121] 



SWAYING TREE TOPS 

all. Startling is the splash of the 
fish a dozen rods from shore. I climb 
the steps over the meadow fence, and 
sit on the topmost, listening to the 
crickets in the grass, and the cry of 
the long-legged bird that wades in 
the shallows by the reef. It is an 
hour of indolent enjoyment, an hour 
of Sabbath worship in the temple not 
made with hands, temporal upon the 
earth. 

Thus the season, either on the slope 
that rises up to mid-summer, or down 
from it, has these moments choice as 
treasure of rare worth and short life. 
While we are thinking thus, we may 
as well notice how closely this slop- 
ing of the seasons figures the hu- 
man life. There is a summit of 
maturity, when man may look back 

[122] 



SWAYING TREE TOPS 

down the grade of his years to the 
springtime, with its awakening, and 
also forward down the slope, where 
his feet must go to the winter and its 
sleep. In the past experience there 
are moments that he would live over. 
As he goes down to the expected, 
yet unknown end, there are moments 
when he would tarry in the ecstasy 
of indolent enjoyment. He who 
stands at the summit of his journey, 
in the maturity of his years, may feel 
it as pleasant to track back to the 
cradle as to break forward to the 
grave. 



[128] 



The Explaining God 

To come to God entirely through 
nature is impossible. Nor can it be 
done by the steam engine or pianola. 
There are extremes where God is 
never found. Extremes are of man's 
invention. The happy mean is 
Divine. Neither the natural nor the 
artificial has more of God in it than 
the man who sees the one or uses the 
other. The godless man can read no 
divine message on the page of nature. 
Neither can the godless man make, 
by a machine, anything suggestive 
of, or instinct with, spiritual power. 

The man who goes to nature with- 
out God to explain what he may see, 
on fair shining days, receives a physi- 
cal impression. He may misjudge 
and miscall it a spiritual blessing. If 

[ 124 ] 



SWAYING TREE TOPS 

while afield the sky should become 
leaden, rain drip from the branches 
of the trees, chill take hold of his 
body, he might misjudge and miscall 
the experience one of spiritual afflic- 
tion, when it, too, is only physical. He 
who goes to nature knowing nothing 
of God, gets nothing but physical 
stimulation, either pleasing or de- 
pressing, as the day may be. 

The engineer who sits within the 
cab, the machinist who runs the lathe, 
will see nothing but two " streaks of 
rust," or a pile of steel shavings, if 
he have no sense of God. 

It matters not where a man goes, 
he can worship, but he must first 
know the Lord of Worship. God is 
immanent in nature and industry, but 
nature and industry are not God. 



Soil Thoughts 

Among the hills, the girl with her 
violets and I follow the winding road, 
in the heart of a quiet land. The 
day is one which, if you were to come 
upon suddenly, you would be uncer- 
tain whether it were early spring or 
late autumn. You know not what 
the stillness in the air promises. It 
may be that the trees are to bud 
to-morrow, or the snowflakes drift 
across the landscape. 

Warm and golden were the sun's 
rays as we went on our way, but so 
far afield did we go that the sun set 
behind a cloud and evening fell about 
us. No bird whistled cheerily from 
the tree top, but a leaf fluttered 
down to join its fellows, wind-heaped 

[126] 



SWAYING TREE TOPwS 

beside the road, and then we knew it 
was not spring, but next day would 
be December. 

In the days just before December 
there are hours when the quiet of the 
country becomes most friendly in its 
voice to those who go with listening 
ear along its roads. The trees and 
shrubs are bare, and nothing inter- 
feres \^dth long views. The secrets 
that every dense woodland and 
thicket guarded jealously in June are 
now seen to have been the river wind- 
ing through the one, and the nests 
that birds have forsaken in the other. 
Across the land at intervals run the 
dividing roads, along which stand the 
farmhouses, their maples and elms 
stripped of foliage, serving poorly 
as a screen from intrusive eyes. 

[127] 



SWAYING TREE TOPS 

One wonders what determined the 
site of the average farmhouse. Per- 
haps a grove of trees explains the 
location of one or two. Perhaps a 
hill from which a view can be secured 
tells the reason for the situation of 
two or three more, but of all the rest 
nothing apparent indicates their 
builder's reason for putting them 
where they are. 

The girl with the violets says she 
cannot understand why that brick 
house should have been placed on the 
south side of the road, in a treeless 
field, while just across the road is a 
grove of trees which would have 
made such a cool retreat in summer 
and given unlimited opportunity for 
landscape gardening effects. Then 
I remark that I cannot see why those 

[128] 



SWAYING TREE TOPS 

folks built that "upright and lean- 
to" on the side of the hill away from 
the river, and facing into another 
hill, when they might have put a cot- 
tage near the top of the other slope, 
that would have furnished a prospect, 
winter and summer, across the valley, 
where the shallow river makes music 
in its rapids. 

Live folks do such queer things 
for themselves and with themselves, 
while often they do better with the 
dead. Yonder is the cemetery, beau- 
tiful even in the bareness of Novem- 
ber, with its trees and hedge and 
long vista down the valley which its 
dead cannot get up to see. 

But with all the mistakes and queer 
things that folks who live in the 
country do when they select the loca- 

[129] 



SWAYING TREE TOPS 

tion for their houses, still they are 
highly favored, and, with the multi- 
tude of their blessings, this can be 
overlooked. For out here, on these 
quiet November days, all can think if 
they wish. It is a joy to let the rush 
go by — the train, the trolley car, the 
automobile — and jog on slowly over 
the farm lands, out to the cornfields, 
into the orchard and back again with 
the wagon filled with the long yellow 
or the round red. At every trip the 
crib grows fuller, and the cellar bin 
is heaped higher. 

Thus, in the autumn days, to be 
leisurely and purposefully gathering 
and storing away the real corn and 
fruit, makes more unreal and sense- 
less the mad rush on that so-called 
market where men who would hardly 
know an ear of corn from an apple 

[ISO] 



SWAYING TREE TOPS 

buy and sell that which has never 
been grown and never will be. Some 
there are on the market who have 
known the country, and such a com- 
mentary they present on human 
weakness. That any man who has 
once been near to the soil — the source 
of strength — should leave it for the 
market — the abode of weakness — is 
more than can be understood in a 
moment. It is one of those contrasts 
which life brings to our attention, 
whereby we learn that man is prone 
to idiocy from the beginning. On the 
market, frantic to buy or sell, rich 
to-day and a pauper to-morrow so far 
as dollars are concerned, pauper all 
the while so far as productivity and 
service are concerned; on the farm 
lands, leisurely working with nature, 
whose pay is slow, but ever increas- 

[ 131 ] 



SWAYING TREE TOPS 

ing — such are the alternatives for 
every man. 

I stayed one time for two weeks 
and a day or two where they danced 
till twelve o'clock at night, where the 
bells rang at five o'clock in the morn- 
ing for early mass, where they rushed 
all day, till dancing time again, to 
pack pork and make steel things — 
that I concluded was as near the place 
of eternal torment as I had ever been, 
or ever wished to be, and I resolved 
never to get that near again. But 
these November days, still and beau- 
tiful, are surely hours in the vestibule 
to Heaven. Maybe they are Heaven. 
We can easily believe that, for they 
work out good for our spirits, and 
One has said : " The Kingdom of 
Heaven is within you." 

[132] 



The Smug Life 

How the smug propriety of a city 
street palls upon me. Back of the 
propriety was the greed of real estate 
owners, and along with it, on the part 
of those who had the houses built, 
was the lack of artistic sense. All 
the houses are within a dozen feet 
of the sidewalk, and so close together 
that air and light are impossibilities. 
Here we live, thinking we have a 
beautiful place. We put on our best 
clothes and go down the cement side- 
walk a few squares and back again. 
Day after to-morrow we will do the 
same stunt, and then say to ourselves, 
" How nice it is to live in town." 
We have not room to move, nor 

[ 133 ] 



SWAYING TREE TOPS 

distance to see, nor light to renovate 
our houses. Consequently we take a 
car when we have five squares to go, 
because our muscles are too weak to 
walk — we think. We cannot appre- 
ciate space, and if we chanced upon a 
place where houses were one hundred 
feet apart, or should find a village 
with the houses set in orchards, we 
would immediately talk about be- 
ing lonesome, and say the lack of con- 
veniences was something " terrible." 
So we frantically rush at the first 
chance to pay twenty-five dollars per 
month for six rooms and ten feet of 
space. I am wondering how long we 
shall so enjoy the " benefits " of 
civilization. 

Come, let us go to the country — 
and stay! 

[ 1S4 ] 



Mountain Moonlight 

The charm of moonlight among 
the mountains in mid-summer! What 
words will describe it? 

The day was long and hot, and 
the mountain sides were scorched and 
yellowed by the sun. The trees hung 
listless, drooping, wilted. The birds 
all afternoon were quiet. The only 
sound that broke the hot silence was 
the long whistle of the locomotive 
as it drew the train down the valley 
and behind the other range. 

The sun went down, red-hot and 
bhstering to the last. Then a cow, 
somewhere on the ridge side, con- 
cluding it was time to go home, got 
up and shook her bell. It seemed 

[135] 



SWAYING TREE TOPS 

to be the signal for a general awak- 
ening. A rabbit hopped out, and sat 
looking toward the red west. Some 
birds struck up a vesper song. The 
branches of the topmost trees upon 
the ridge began to wave slightly in 
the soft breath of the evening. The 
western sky deepened from rose and 
saffron to maroon, then to duller 
tints, which finally were lost in the 
darkness. 

After an hour of brooding dark, 
the east began to brighten and then 
the moon slipped over the pine-edged 
horizon and floated above the indis- 
tinct disorder of the hills. • 

Along the wide road on the ridge 
crest I pass in the glory of the 
moonlit night. The shadows are deep 
where the oaks stand thick beside the 

[136] 



SWAYING TREE TOPS 

road, but they only seem to make the 
unshadowed places lighter. The road 
winds to the east side of the ridge, 
where I can look over the tree tops to 
the distant mountains, that are lying 
like sentinels guarding the gate- 
way whence the dawn shall come. 
Then the highway slips along the 
western ledge, below which all is 
dark and full of mystery as yet. 
After the heat of the day, the deli- 
cious coolness of the night air is a 
tonic draught, and I think I could 
thus walk on forever and never 
weary. The woods give out the odor 
of dew-refreshed plant and flower. 
The air is heavy with the scent of 
the pines, which stand solemn and 
ghostly at the foot of the ridge. 
There is no sound except the chirp 

[137] 



SWAYING TREE TOPS 

of the night insects, which, while it 
brushes away the silence, yet inter- 
feres not with hearing distant sounds 
should they come. But there are no 
distant sounds. All is one big world 
of silent moonlighted ridge, valley, 
and mountain. 

As the evening wears on to mid- 
night a vapor collects in the valley 
along the river, whose winding course 
is thus detected, where it swings out 
of the north, and making the turn of 
Moccasin Bend, at last rushes from 
sight westward through the narrows. 
The vapor increases until it enfolds 
all lesser elevations than the one from 
which I watch. The city lights dis- 
appear. The incline car on the 
opposite mountain drops down a 
third its way and then is gone. The 

[138] 



SWAYING TREE TOPS 

moon makes beautiful this valley 
foam as it billows and mantles all 
in concealment. 

The progress of the vapory tide is 
stayed at last. There are no longer 
any mountains. They have become 
islands in the sea of silver white. 
Just at the edge of the island on 
which I stand, from the trees which 
border the beach, a mocking bird trills 
into the night. 



[189] 



The Isolation of Dawn 

Rise early, and go out to keep com- 
pany with the morning. Morning 
lasts in summer till eight or nine 
o'clock. So you may choose your 
hour, but the earlier you choose to go 
the pleasanter will be your experi- 
ence. 

It was before sunrise and the 
woods were still gray with shadows. 
The Lake was streaked with broad 
bands of calm water, between which 
rippled a million joyous wavelets. 
As I dipped softly out upon the red- 
tinged water the liquid call of a bird 
on the sandy beach and the cawing of 
crows in the woodland alone broke 
the silence of the dawn. Along the 

[ 140 ] 



0__^|^^X^ktf^Iu 



SWAYING TREE TOPS 

north a band of turquoise sky 
reached from the sunrise point to the 
western woods. Out against it stood 
a windwheel, undecided which way 
to point the breeze. The zenith was 
massed with dark cloud which broke 
into red-edged fragments toward the 
eastern sky line. 

Though three thousand sleeping 
folk lay in cottages upon the shores, 
I w^as as much alone in the silence of 
the dawning day as though in mid- 
ocean. The isolations of silence, 
how seldom do we seek and value 
them! Just before the activity of 
the day we may detach ourselves 
from the claims of folks and things, 
and learn to know the self which 
hides within our formal manner and 
conforming habit. 'Tis then that 

[141] 



SWAYING TREE TOPS 

the garb of the conventional slips 
away, and natural and free our spirits 
mount to greet the dawn. A few 
hours hence we may be perplexed, 
and tired, and angry, but now the 
rush of our life is stayed. 

I raised the oars and motionless 
awaited the first ray of the sun. The 
last vestige of care dropped with the 
trickle of the water from the blades. 
Calmed and satisfied, I let the morn- 
ing breeze bear me where it would. 
I had already entered the harbor of 
peace. Could I have kept that joy, 
the secret sought for ages would have 
been mine. 

As the sun flashed red against the 
cottage windows on the western 
shore, I turned back to the pier by the 
eastern bluff. Rowing slowly shore- 

[ 142] 



SWAYING TREE TOPS 

ward, a bit of drifting weed clung 
to my oar, and then the soggy end 
of a rocket which had gone skyward 
the night before floated past; so was 
I reminded of life upon the land. 



[l43l 



Russet Premonitions 

When the sun had sunk below the 
hill crest I came to the road on the 
eastern side. It was arched with 
trees and sloped upward before me, 
not enough to weary, but enough to 
please in its suggestion of a wider 
view, with every step ahead. The 
Miami flowed placidly, almost laz- 
ily, along the level valley. Its water 
was seen occasionally through the 
sycamore trees that were gathered 
on the flat between the hill and the 
river. 

The autumn sun had been hot, as 
I had followed the river road. Now, 
as I climbed the hillside, the shadows 
were cool. Above me at the crest 

[144] 



SWAYING TREE TOPS 

the golden light lingered among the 
trees, the last rays clinging to the 
leafy tops. Each tree trunk was 
silhouetted against the yellow west. 
Even the brush fringing the crest 
kept no secrets as the last rays of the 
sun glanced athwart the hilltop. 

Early September has only sugges- 
tions of autumn to offer to the 
tramper through the woods and 
along the roads. A hot noon and a 
cool evening is one suggestion. But 
the russet glow in hillcrest woods at 
sunset is to me the surest token of 
the declining year. If a few leaves 
filter slowly through the light, it is a 
perfect hour. Yet the leaves falling 
may be lacking, and the hour suggest 
autumn. The real suggestions are 
the coolness of the air immediately 

[ 145 ] 



SWAYING TREE TOPS 

upon the disappearance of the sun, 
and the light that glorifies the hilltop. 
The premonitions of the autumn 
of life are likewise the early chill and 
the yellow light that falls along the 
crest road before one takes the first 
step down into the valley of the sun- 
set. Then comes the revelation of 
the man, to those who have not yet 
left the sunrise side of the hill. He 
stands silhouetted against the west. 



[146] 



Witching Pathways 

The pleasures of reminiscence ! Who 
is able to measure them? Who is 
able to explain the allurement of 
the past? Who can resist the witch- 
ing music of the streams that mur- 
mur through the fields where youth 
went free and happy? Who falls 
not a-dreaming when the light clouds 
which floated over the blue of summer 
skies long ago once more float in the 
memory? 

Some trivial thing — the rose petal 
falling, the bird note at evening, the 
smell of the morning air, the mottled 
shadows on the forest floor — will 
bring old scenes to me, and blissfully 

[147] 



SWAYING TREE TOPS 

forgetful of the present, I go bouy- 
antly along the pathways of the past. 

Is it characteristic of human na- 
ture to see the romance of the past, 
and not the present? Do we see the 
glamour of an hour gone only from 
a distant view? Do we hear the call- 
ing voices the other side of the hill, 
or behind us, or around the turning 
of the road? Were these things to 
be seen and heard when we were 
there, only we were too near to see 
and hear? 

Be that as it may, this autumn 
morning, when the chill without has 
made necessary the closing of my 
window and a fire within, there comes 
to me the call of other days. 

There were those winter days in 
another clime, not colder than this 

[148] 



SWAYING TREE TOPS 

one of early autumn here, when the 
blue sky and everlasting sunshine 
were over me as I walked the streets, 
and along the paths where the sum- 
mer's leaves lay thick upon the hill- 
side. Then, when the chill came 
after sunset, I went home to my 
chair before the glowing grate. 
After the night would come another 
sunny morning, when the white frost 
was on the leaves of the holly tree 
before the door, on the brick wall to 
the gate, on the magnolias shining 
green even through the white veil. 
Those were blessed days — tonic days 
— when sweet potato pone, corn 
bread, and hominy-grits did their 
work with the sunshine to make a life 
worth living. 

To-day I go further into retro- 

[149] 



SWAYING TREE TOPS 

spect, and I can see the poppies wav- 
ing in the trade winds of the Santa 
Clara, acres of them on either side 
of the road that runs the length of 
the valley. Anon, my hat and the 
wind go away together, but only to 
lodge among the flowers and thus 
bring me nearer to them. At even- 
ing the coast range lies reddened in 
the sunset fire, and the sound of a 
bell, somewhere above, floats down as 
sweet as a vesper from angel-land. 

Another retrospect! At the cor- 
ner of the two streets was the grocery, 
with its stand of brooms and keg of 
olives on the veranda. There, in the 
late afternoon, we used to meet, buy 
a few olives and crackers to munch 
over our books that night, and 
" joke " the storekeeper because they 

[150] 



SWAYING TREE TOPS 

said he intended to become a bene- 
dict soon. There were no sidewalks 
in that httle town which snuggled 
at the rim of the valley against the 
mountain's foot. The sage bush was 
everywhere, interrupted only in its 
possession of the place by a few 
houses, and yards, and orange groves, 
upon which you would come unex- 
pectedly, and, having passed, would 
wish to pass again. Everybody about 
the settlement seemed to have just 
stopped off for a night, and kept on 
stopping. They cleaned up a square 
in the bush, and lived the simple life. 
The College buildings and grounds 
were similar in their appointment and 
appearance. Along the paths and 
short cuts we went to chapel in the 
morning, and to some recitations, 

[151] 



SWAYING TREE TOPS 

then to dinner, then to the Bungalow 
to leave our books. We would study 
them at night, we said; just then 
there was too much sunshine and 
beauty. It lay on the mountains 
yonder, it ran down the valley to Po- 
mona, and up the other side, and, 
wondering where it went, we fol- 
lowed. The call of the out-of-doors 
was strong upon us in those days, and 
nothing more than failure in recita- 
tion would result if we went tramp- 
ing here and there. We so did, and 
from this distance I think those les- 
sons were well missed, and we prof- 
ited by being truants. 



[132] 



Out-door Compensations 

Dead leaves and sunshine together 
aiFect one's fancy strangely. JNIelan- 
choly and joyousness are united. 
The rustle of the dead leaves under 
foot, as I follow the bank of the river, 
causes me to think of a departed sum- 
mer. But the sunshine, glinting on 
the water, flooding the hollow of the 
hills, pouring through the bare trees 
above me — this holds me fast in the 
light and joyous present. 

Afield on an Autumn- Winter 
Day, ^dth feet upon the leaves, and 
head bathed by the sunlight, is 
a privilege few, perhaps, reahze 
enough to seize, and those who do 

[15S] 



SWAYING TREE TOPS 

can poorly describe the pleasure 
therefrom; and so can only partially 
stimulate the disinterested ones who 
prefer to remain along the pavements 
or in the gloomy houses of the aver- 
age city or town. 

As with other tastes, the love for 
the open is a cultivated one. After 
its development, one wonders how 
he could have been satisfied by the 
" shut-in life." He pled fatigue, 
lack of time, and other excuses, but 
when he has grown to love the open, 
he finds that he is rested by going 
out, and saves time by being able to 
do better and more work when he re- 
turns. In the early winter the dead 
leaves hold one to the past enough for 
rootage, and the sunshine fills the 
soul with gladness, and inspires one's 

[154] 



SWAYING TREE TOPS 

thoughts for growth in the present 
and future. 

It is a quiet afternoon, and, look- 
ing across the sun-bathed valley, it 
hardly seems credible that a long 
time must elapse before the trees and 
shrubs shall be clothed with verdure, 
and the grass grow green above the 
brown earth. I am ready now^ for 
spring. Why wait six long months? 

As though to make my desire less 
intense, a vine, clinging to a leafless 
tree, still keeps its green against the 
blighting frost. Thus everywhere 
we turn we find compensations. 
These green leaves will cling here to 
temper the winter for me, to make 
less keen the sorrow for a departed 
summer, and less intense the longing 
for a coming spring. 

[155] 



Close Home 

A NEW path was discovered to-day. 
I had gone many times along the 
right bank of the river, but to-day I 
followed the left bank, and a new 
path ran on before me, full of un- 
suspected turnings, and much more 
picturesque than the old one. 

The joy of going where you have 
never been before is the joy of a dis- 
coverer. One need not travel to dis- 
tant countries to have this joy. It 
may be had, perhaps, in the fields, 
adjacent to one's suburban home. 
Something is there awaiting someone 
to find it. 

It is surprising what little space is 
necessary to put one in a new world. 

[156] 



SWAYING TREE TOPS 

I drop down the path on the steep 
side of a ravine, through the tangle 
of undergrowth, and come upon a 
stream a yard wide, which gurgles 
over the gray stone of its bed. I feel 
that I am isolated in a strange coun- 
try. (I have lived for months six 
squares away.) These little experi- 
ences teach one that the present and 
the near-at-hand is full of the undis- 
covered. 



[l.'^Tl 



Wrestling Sycamores 

The sycamores have bared their 
arms for the wrestle with the winter 
wind. There is nothing cowardly 
about them. They throw off their 
jackets at the first hint of a winter 
battle. From my window I can see 
them down by the water, bending 
and straining every fiber as they 
catch the wind and hurl it back, 
breathless, and moaning with its pain. 
I have heard it said that the trees 
sigh in the wind. Not a bit of it. 
The wind that struggles with the tree 
tops sighs. When it is thrown back, 
moaning, the sycamores gather them- 
selves and await the new attack. 
All the night through, while I am 

[158] 



SWAYING TREE TOPS 

sleeping up here on the hill top, the 
sycamores down by the river are 
battling for their lives. When I 
awaken in the night I hear the wind 
crying for quarter, but the trees are 
silent in their grim defiance. In the 
morning the wind has given up 
the struggle and slunk back into its 
caves of the north, but the sycamores 
stand erect — perhaps an inch taller 
for the struggle — with the sunshine 
glorifying their white tops. 

All save one. To-day I found one 
sycamore had fallen — its great length 
breaking with the fall into many shat- 
tered pieces. When I examined it 
I discovered that it had died before 
it fell. Last summer lightning 
struck its heart. Even then its death 
was deliberate, and it died as a king 

[159] 



SWAYING TREE TOPS 

dies. When the storm came last 
night the tree had gone — only its 
untenanted shell remained. The vic- 
tory of the wind was empty of honor. 

Even now the dead shell, lying 
prone upon the earth, will serve a 
purpose. Violets will bloom sooner 
on the sunny side of the trunk next 
spring, and the defeat of the north 
wind will continue. 

The girl who wears the violets will 
pick them there, and, sitting on the 
fallen trunk, will mass them with 
their leaves for her emblem of the 
season; while the robin will call 
cheerily from the fence rail, " Spring 
— spring — spring is here." 



[160] 



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